Valkyrie gave her a smile. "Hiya, Carol. Oh my God, that smells amazing."

"Uh, do you... do you want to share?"

"Would you mind? Just one or two."

Carol hesitated, then brought the bag out and opened it. She offered it to Valkyrie, who took a small handful of piping hot chips. Her stomach rumbled; she realised she was starving. She blew on them a few times before eating.

"These are so good."

Carol smiled, and had a few herself. They walked towards the corner of Main Street, where the road split.

"How are things?" Valkyrie asked.

"Good," Carol said. "Grand."

"How's your mum?"

"Fine. She joined a bridge club."

"I didn't know she liked bridge."

"She doesn't, but ever since we started defending you she needed a wider range of people to disapprove of."

Valkyrie took another few chips, and grinned. "You know, if it makes your life any easier, you can always go back to agreeing with her."

"No. No way. Those days are gone. Look at everything we missed out on because we were too busy being selfish. Gordon chose you to have all these adventures. He could have easily chosen us if we'd been nicer or cooler or, I don't know, happier. It's like Mum just kind of trained us to be miserable. Dad spoiled us and Mum was a bad example and look how we turned out. And then look at your mum and dad. They're cool, and funny, and weird, and genuine. They're genuine, y'know? Mum isn't genuine."

They walked along for a bit, with Carol eating her chips and Valkyrie looking at her. "She's not all bad."

"No," Carol said. "She isn't. She's my mum, and I love her, but she's not a nice person. You mightn't think we realise that but we do."

"I don't know what to say," Valkyrie admitted. "I don't want to agree with you, because that'd be mean. And I can't really argue..."

Carol laughed, and Valkyrie smiled.

"But no one's perfect," she continued. "My folks can get just as annoying as anyone's."

"But you had a head start," Carol said. "They gave you that, and that's what makes them cool. They didn't spoil you. They criticised you when you needed it. They didn't treat you like you were this little princess that only they could see. You were way more independent at twelve than we are even now. Do you understand that? The twelve-year-old version of you was more of a grown-up than I am right now, aged twenty."

"I think you're being a bit hard on yourself."

They reached the corner and Carol turned to her. "Look at me, Valkyrie. I mean, just look at me. I'm a slob."

"No, you're not."

"It's ten o'clock on a Wednesday night and I'm walking home with a bag of chips, just like I do every night. I'm fat. I've always been fat and I've always hated being fat but I'm too lazy to do anything about it. I start diets but they're too hard so I stop, and eat more. I'm fat and Crystal is thin, she's way too thin and she won't listen to me, she won't believe me when I tell her she's too skinny. She always says no, she hasn't reached her target weight yet, and she gets thinner and thinner and I can see her bones now. I know you're used to that with Skulduggery, but it's a lot different when it's your sister."

"Yeah."

"And then we look at you. Even from here I can see the muscles on your arms."

"I have to be strong to do what I do. If I wasn't involved in all this, I'd be just like you guys."

"No, you wouldn't. You'd still be tall, for a start, and you'd probably be swimming every day or horse-riding or something."

"Well, that's all you need to do. Whenever I'm not working on a case with Skulduggery, I train really hard. I practise magic, I fight, I lift weights, I work out. Every few months Skulduggery brings in another friend of his who's an expert in some fighting style I've never heard of and I get thrown about the place. Whatever muscles I have I got through hard work and sweat. And I hated most of it. But all you have to do is find the activity that you enjoy and you won't care about how hard the work is."

"I've... I might have found an activity." Carol looked away. "I've been, kind of... I've been practising magic."

Valkyrie raised an eyebrow. "I see."

"Just the fire stuff," Carol said quickly. "I'm not really good with the air, and I don't know about the water and earth, but I can click my fingers and sometimes things go on fire."

"Sounds... dangerous."

"I keep a bucket of water beside me when I do it."

"Listen, I don't want to tell you not to practise. I don't have that right. You have magic in you, it's part of your heritage, just like it's a part of mine. But you're taking a risk every time you do it. What if your mum sees you? Or your dad? They'd freak out, Carol. They'd call every emergency service they could think of. You could get into a lot of trouble."

"I won't, I promise."

"Can you at least try not to set fire to anything? That's going to raise some suspicions sooner or later."

"I won't do it in the house any more."

"OK. Thank you."

"Do you want another chip?"

Valkyrie smiled, and took one.

"Are you working on a case at the moment?" asked Carol.

"Yeah," she said.

"Anything exciting?"

"A few days ago I wrestled an Abominable Snowman."

"No way!"

Valkyrie grinned. "Yep. That was pretty cool. Really bad breath, though. Like, disgusting."

"Eww."

"And I've been to an alternate universe."

"Seriously? Like on Star Trek?"

Valkyrie laughed. "Since when do you know about Star Trek?"

Carol looked around, like someone might be listening, then leaned in. "Don't tell your parents, but Mum loves Star Trek. When we were kids, we used to watch the reruns of the original series, Next Generation, DS9... She liked Voyager more than we did, and none of us liked Enterprise... But she doesn't want anyone to know she's a Trekkie, so..."

"I promise I won't tell, no matter how amused it might make me."

"Thank you. So what was the alternate universe like? Are there evil versions of everybody? Is there an evil version of me?"

Valkyrie laughed. "Sadly, no. Our histories ran parallel up to a few hundred years ago, so none of us have been born."

"Oh. That sucks." Carol ate another chip. "Wouldn't it be cool to find out what your evil version would be like?"

Valkyrie made a face. "Not really..."

She walked Carol back to her house and they finished off the bag of chips. Carol told her about this guy she liked in college, and they giggled and laughed and when Carol walked to her front door, she had a bounce in her step, and looked lighter than her frame would suggest. Smiling to herself, Valkyrie took the little lane down to the beach and walked back to her house along the sand. She got to her room, the reflection went back into the mirror, and she stripped down to underwear and a T-shirt and climbed into bed. Sleep came quickly.

She didn't know what time it was when the throbbing in her arm woke her, but it was still dark as she lunged out of bed. She grabbed her phone and her ring off the bedside table and stumbled to the wardrobe. The world flickered around her and a wave of dizziness sent her into the mirror. Her ring fell from her grip. She reached for her black clothes as the reflection stepped out and then the bedroom was gone and Valkyrie was falling through empty space. She hit the ground and rolled, sprawling on to her back.

Her house was gone. She sat up, groaning, looking down towards the pier as the waves crashed and churned. The modern houses were gone. Old walls crumbled beside dirt tracks instead of roads.

She sat there on the untamed grass, in her underwear and a T-shirt, her phone clutched in her hand. She didn't have her protective clothing. She didn't have her Necromancer ring. The only thing she'd managed to do right was release her reflection, so at least her family wouldn't notice her departure. That was something, at least.

"Looks like we're in trouble," her own voice said, and she whipped around to see her reflection sitting behind her.

he town of Haggard was gone, and in its place stood a small village. Thin shacks of rotting wood squatted in the darkness, black voids against the star-filled sky. It was an unsettling sensation for Valkyrie to walk the ground she knew so well and for it to be so utterly different. They circled the village's perimeter. Small stones dug into her feet with every step. The reflection matched her pace but showed no sign of discomfort.

"You should have given me space," Valkyrie said, her voice tight.

"I'm sorry," said the reflection.

"The whole point of your existence is to stay behind, for God's sake. What use are you if we're both missing? Mum's going to freak out."

"Or she might just assume that you left for school early."

Valkyrie glared. "Have we ever done that before?"

"No," it admitted, "but with all the talk of exams lately, she might believe you're taking it seriously."

"So she's going to believe I got up an hour earlier because I wanted some study time?"

The reflection shrugged. "People believe what they want to believe so long as it's reasonable. But I'm sorry. I should have waited in the mirror until you were gone. I don't know why I tried to help you up. There might be something wrong with me again."

Valkyrie didn't say anything. She was being unfair and she knew it.

"OK," she said at last, "the plan. The plan is to stay out of sight until we're pulled back. We need to stay within arm's reach at all times, all right? I don't know how long we'll be here."

"You're cold. You need clothes."

"You need clothes, too. I don't want you running around in a strange dimension half naked. I have my modesty to protect."

Valkyrie checked her phone, more out of curiosity than any expectation that it would actually work. No signal and no Internet. She tried to find her position on a map but the phone informed her she could not be located. Out of the two things she had grabbed, why couldn't she have dropped the phone instead of the ring? The ring at least would have worked.

They found a clothes line that apparently belonged to a big fat man. The trousers were a fine length but they were far too wide, so Valkyrie had to use a piece of string as a belt. The coat was fine, though she had to roll the sleeves up a little. The boots were the worst, though. They were battered and tattered and much too big. But at least she had boots. The reflection was barefoot, and didn't have a coat, but it did find some loose change in one of its pockets so at least now they had money even though they had no idea how much the coins were worth.

They were heading for the next town over. The plan was to keep to the back roads and they were succeeding admirably, as every road so far looked like a back road.

"What time is it?" the reflection asked.

"Why, do you have somewhere to be?"

"I'm just asking because your first visit here lasted twenty minutes. We've been here hours. It's nearly dawn."

"Yeah," Valkyrie said. "I noticed. Nadir said this echo thing will build its own pattern, but I have no idea how to work it out."

"We could be here for days."

"Yeah," said Valkyrie, her mood failing to lift.

Dawn split the night sky and glorious orange spilled across the horizon. They saw farmers in fields working with mules and horses, sweating in the morning sun. It was just like travelling back in time.

"I wonder if the whole world is like this," she said. "There has to be one country where things have progressed, where things have been invented. Life evolves, right? It doesn't just stay in one place and that's that."

"It does if you're a slave," said the reflection. "That's what the mortals are in this dimension, aren't they? Slaves. The sorcerers keep magic for themselves, their lives evolve and their society progresses, but for mortals? They're kept down here in the mud. They aren't allowed up."

Valkyrie looked at it. "That sucks."

"Yes, it does."

They got to the next village and bought some bread. Their money didn't stretch very far, but it was enough to satisfy Valkyrie's hunger. People looked at them oddly, seeing a set of twins in badly fitting clothes, but didn't bother them, and Valkyrie and the reflection stayed out of the way as much as possible. The houses here were the same as in Haggard, and the stony trail that acted as the main street was covered in horse dung.

They watched the people ignore a woman who was pleading for help. She grabbed the arm of a man and he tried to shake her off. Valkyrie turned away from her wailing and begging and only glanced back when he threw her down.

"Hey," said Valkyrie, and before she knew what she was doing she was halfway across the road.

"Please!" the woman cried. "Please help me!"

The man cursed her, raised a hand to hit her and Valkyrie clicked her fingers. The fireball flared and the man recoiled, turned and ran. She let the flames go out, fully aware that the street had practically emptied and that her reflection was shaking its head. The woman was on her knees, and she clutched Valkyrie's leg.

"Please help me."

"Here," Valkyrie said, "stand up. Stop crying. What's wrong?"

The woman allowed herself to be pulled up, but she transferred her hold from Valkyrie's leg to her wrist. "Please. My son. They took my son."

"What happened?"

"He was talking with his friends, just talking. It wasn't anything more than that. There was nothing about the Resistance or about fighting, it was just... He didn't mean anything by it. He wasn't complaining. But the Sense-Wardens came out of nowhere, and before he could explain himself they arrested him."

Valkyrie went cold. "Sense-Wardens patrol out here?"